Resetting Our happiness – Enjoying Simpler Experiences

For most people, taking a vacation in this era has been dreamy stuff. This dream is soon going to turn into reality through the vaccination so it is time to start by nurturing your imagination of traveling around. For most of us, canceling vacations has been a common experience. As more and more people are getting vaccinated against the virus, traveling will soon be a wish come true for many people as the restrictions would be reduced.

Vaccines around the country have started off from quite some time though even then we must follow certain guidelines like wearing a mask and hygiene habits along with maintaining a safe distance to stop the spread of this virus. Your future getaway might not be very far off and thinking about it will be yielding surprising benefits.

Resetting Our happiness – Enjoying Simpler Experiences

Elizabeth Dunn who is currently a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia said that anticipation can be considered as a valuable source of happiness and pleasure. She said the above statement after having studied happiness and anticipation.

What Dr. Dun had said about finding happiness and spending it when the world was on the heels of a great recession that was more than a decade ago. Recently, she also spoke about how talking about travel and the art of anticipation in pandemic can bring in more happiness.

One can take practical tips and insight from the social sciences on how you can cultivate anticipation. And check what types of trips can maximize the happiness in the post-pandemic era. This is an excellent time for trip planning and discussing future travel can help many people who are feeling isolated now.

When a person begins planning after months of being holed up in their home will be experiencing a reset of happiness. Even when someone is planning less costly or even modest vacations will be bringing extreme pleasure as said by Dr, Dunn. She further added that even if you are planning something that is quite simple yet feel fantastic about it. This is great news for especially those travelers whose incomes are reduced due to the ongoing pandemic. 

If people travel more, then they are less likely to enjoy each trip as said by Dr. Funn. The same is said by Michael Norton in “Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending” who is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He is also a member of Harvard’s Behavioral Insights Group. Further, Dr. Dun also studied and investigated about – how more of or an abundance of life experiences desired by that person undermines a person’s ability to enjoy simple experiences. So, this study was published in 2015 in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Dr. Dun and her researchers wrote that if one is a world traveler or feels like one can undermine a person’s ability to enjoy simple experiences. They will only enjoy extraordinary trips. So, in some sense, we can say that our current state may help us replenishing and enjoying these simple experiences. 

So, we can take advantage of the situation and do a happiness reset with a simple yet an amazing trip. For example a beach getaway, a cross country road trip or going someplace near to your home. There is no need to plan an extraordinary getaway to the other side of the world.  Dr. Dun says that she feels planning a vacation is an active step towards hoping and ending the terrible experiences. This won’t last for long as we will again be indulging in greater expectations again so we might take advantage and go on to relish life’s simple experiences.